"Ayrton wished to do more than his duty, and into his mind there now came a heroic thought. It would mean sacrificing his own life, but at least he would save the island and its colonists" (Verne 447).

The colonists had rescued a savage man from a nearby island. When the colonists ventured into the depths of the island, a wild, mangy beast jumped out and attacked one of the colonists. That savage creature turned out to be a man named Ayrton; so the story goes in Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island.

The rescued man was then brought back to Lincoln Island to live with the five colonists; their hot-air-balloon had been caught in a storm and carried them thousands of miles from America, to a deserted but fruitful island in the Pacific Ocean. The man was extremely reclusive, not uttering a word for several months.

After he opens...